Friday Hodgepodge

Image via Wikipedia.

Four Things

1. I'd love to see one of these some time:

A Tree of 40 Fruit is one of a series of fruit trees created by the New York-based artist Sam Van Aken using the technique of grafting. Each tree produces forty types of stone fruit, of the genus Prunus, ripening sequentially from July to October in the United States. [bold in original, links omitted]

I'm not so sure I'd call them art, but that's really neat!

2. Pro tip -- or is it a con tip? If you're a globe-trotter faking it as a wealthy Saudi prince, you might consider skipping the pork.

3. I keep running into talk of the interrobang, but it isn't news to Keith Houston, who has written a piece on Punctuation that failed to make its mark:

The next new symbol did not arrive until 1962, when a Madison Avenue executive named Martin K Speckter wrote a magazine article in which he proposed combining the question and exclamation marks to create a new symbol -- ‽ -- that he called the "interrobang". To introduce his new mark, Speckter explained that Christopher Columbus must have been both excited and doubtful when he first sighted the Americas. Did he shout "Land, ho!" or "Land, ho?" -- or was it some combination of the two? The interrobang, Speckter wrote, was the perfect way to capture the ambiguity. The Wall Street Journal had a pithier example: "Who forgot to put gas in the car‽" Speckter explained that the symbol's evocative name came from the Latin interrogatio, or "questioning", and the word "bang", a printers' nickname for the exclamation mark. [format edits]

Houston has written an entire book, titled, Shady Characters, The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks, and which I have received as gift from a friend. I have a move in my near future, so it might wait a bit longer, but I am looking forward to it.

4. The next time you find yourself stuck in a team-building exercise for work, be glad it isn't this one (via Suzanne Lucas):

We've based each "relaxation tent" on Moroccan and Indian relaxation practices, and there will be incense and oil lamp lighting, as well as large bean bags and relaxation beds for everyone in the group. During the day co-workers will be required to cuddle each other in a variety of different positions and will need to switch partners every two hours -- so that you have a chance to bond with everyone. [bold added, format edits]

The day starts with, among other things, people mentioning negative qualities about their coworkers that this is supposed to help with. Writing this post while in a waiting room, I nearly split my sides thinking of things like, has a disagreeable body odor, is a creep, and is too touchy-feely. Fortunately, Suzanne Lucas, wearing her Evil HR Lady hat, points out a few reasons our bosses won't try to afflict us with this any time soon here in the U.S.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: (1) Added bold to Item 4. (2) Other minor edits.